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Nick Mason recalls the ‘rough’ circumstances Pink Floyd faced when recording Animals
The drummer also reflects on which member he believes has been constantly overlooked in the band.
Image: Jeffrey Mayer/Getty
In light of the newly-reissued version of their 1977 album Animals, Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason has opened up about the technical difficulties the band faced during the recording of the original release.
In an interview with Ultimate Classic Rock yesterday (15 September), Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason recalled how the band struggled to create their tenth studio album Animals – referring to it as the “roughest one” of all their releases.
Promoting the album, which was remixed in 2018 – although has only just been released due to personal conflicts between the members – the drummer told the publication about the struggles the band battled with during the initial recording process.
“I think Animals is interesting. On the technical side of all the albums we’ve made, this was perhaps the roughest one, for all sorts of reasons,” he explains. “It was made at the same time that punk was kicking off, [but also] this was our own studio that had been built on a budget.”
“All of our previous recording had been done at Abbey Road, [where they had] the very, very highest standards,” he continues. “The equipment was good [at our studio] but it was not as good. In some ways, it’s not a bad thing, but in another way, it justifies the remix and the remastering.”
Mason also shares a moment which highlights these difficulties best – recalling how he and Roger Waters accidentally deleted an entire guitar solo when trying to mix the album:
“There was absolutely nothing to stop one of us engineering a guitar solo,” he says. “I have a memory of Roger and me actually supervising a guitar solo of David’s and actually wiping it by mistake… That was again, something you wouldn’t get at Abbey Road.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the drummer also names keyboardist Richard Wright as the most under-appreciated member of Pink Floyd, claiming that other members of the band have noticed how little recognition Wright got for his contributions.
“[As for] what Rick brought to the party…” he states. “We felt over the years that probably Rick is the one who never quite got the appreciation that perhaps he deserved.”
After a four-year delay, the reissue of Animals is out now.